FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1213

My pain and difficulty
in this new field of study:
to find the things I know
just aren’t so!

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1212

I set before you life & death
—in dealing with your food,
your clothes, your transportation,
your housing, your conversation
—in how you meet a stranger,
an other, another creature,
human or otherwise
—Choose life—
Can you accept differences?
Can you make room for all politics?
All solutions?
Can you still defend to the death
the right of that one to say that?
Can you allow life for all earthlings?
Can you be large?
Can you be intimate?
Can you let the world be large?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1211

Stick your nose in: it belongs!

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1210

Perhaps only when you’re new to the practice of life can you have it figured out. But we go forward anyway, my friends.

I may not fully know what I am doing, might not have the words or even the concepts to describe it, but just keep going forward, anyway.

I do not clearly see where this will take me. Go anyway.

I do not have a plan. Go anyway.

Shall I write and publish? Go anyway.

Shall I invite living room dialogues and retreats? Go anyway.

Go anyway. Do anyway. Invite anyway.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1209

Write a gift book: something to give your best to the world.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1208

Calling it all together
Let us be about facing the world and
ourselves as real,
actors upon one another,
timidly going unknowing to meet
who & what reaches forth to meet us

Let us be about

Let us see wider, further
Let us open to our perceptions without
letting our conceptions get in our way
Let us be about meeting the true face

So much as we are able, let us be about
ever coming out of our hiding places
and finding something
much larger to trust

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1207

To have the conversation about emergency medical decisions is a loving thing to do—for them and for you. It makes their soul-searching easier when they are deciding for you, it allows them to know they are doing the last most loving thing they can for you; and by hearing you they are giving you peace of mind—they are loving you now, you are loving them…in the now.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1206

Rather than balancing
The parts of your life
Cutting portions off against each other
Seek harmony, melody & rhythm
Each singing with its whole voice

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1205

There is so much
Good going on in this world
We have only to notice
Notice is letting in
Life seeing another being
Life hearing another heart
Notice what you’d like to let in

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© c 2012, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1204

Bringing capacity and need together seems to be a key to a new economy. We have the ingenuity, we have the people, what we think we lack is the money to bring the people to the need. Yet ingenuity can do the same work as the money. Without the downside of the moaning over its absence!

It is not money we need. What we need is food for today, a roof over our heads, clothing for our backs, and a means of locomotion. We have become so accustomed to using money to buy these things, we have forgotten there are other peaceful, respectful ways to get them.

So maybe we need to put out a call for Job Creation Brigades!

What might we invent? What needs are there that we might meet? Those without a job have a need. Those with a need have resources of varying kinds. Each person is a source of needs…and of resources. What we need is to get to work thinking up ways to bring people together. Money is a poor substitute for that.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1203

Skies, washing and watering: Mother Nature seems to be doing that a lot more these days. Have we brought some of the excess upon ourselves? Is earth trying to wash away our dirt? The lady has had slop buckets emptied on her; she wants nothing so much as to shower and shampoo.

If we work to clean up our mess, will the earth settle into an equilibrium, become again friendly?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1202

When we see each other
as divine gifts, brilliant
then we too become brilliant
we move out of our
dull bored existence into
engaged shimmering

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1201

The horses next door
Watching me in expectant silence
Have me asking
Might they be
A superior intelligence to ours
Gently eating the grass
From my hand
Allowing me to pet their soft noses
Watching me as I pick up sticks,
Mow my grass, do my work
Pondering the trivial things
That hold my attention
Communicating with me
Some eternal truths
Or profound wisdom
In a language
Yet too elevated
For our species to comprehend?

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© c 2011, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1200

All life asks of us
is to bring our good heads
& good hearts

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1199

Weeding another’s garden
A task I now own
I’d hoped but not so easily done
More work than I thought
Why’d they give me this job?
I have other things to do
The weeds among the flowers
The vegetables need picking
Where to start? Where to start?
I see a lone flower, what’s that wet
On my cheek?
I pull out weeds and and a flower too
I grow angry at the weeds—no, at you
I sit here in the midst of all this and
Realize I have been sitting here for
Minutes? Hours? Years of memory
Have taken over
Probate is weeding a garden

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1198

Friend, the rain
Friend, the drizzle
Friend, the blanket of grey
Watering the trees for
Their winter’s long nap
Watering our roots
Grey is our world today
A backdrop for
The colors of spring
The growth of summer
But now the trees rest
And we, we work
Work, though we wish to nap
But primarily we wish
To engage our world
Engage the rain
Engage the all

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1197

Drop
all the nonsense
time now
to live

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1196

Our society is in crisis and here we are pulling apart—as if there were only one direction to go from here. The fact is our society is large enough to hold many people, many ideas, many directions. We need to find a way—make a way—to weave.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1195

Mended with its own thread
It’s all we have, we have no other
Conversation threads us together
Some are beads on a string
Some woven sturdy as canvas
Flaming red
Boring grey
Dour brown
Sad blue
Lively green
All of our colors
One fabric
All sewn together
With our own thread
We can only mend ourselves
With ourselves

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1194

To a butterfly
you must not lie
she will carry your words
far and wide
telling the flowers
and the bees
if it is a lie
they will feel strangled
they might wilt and die
if it is your deepest truth
they are freed
to flower and buzz
To a butterfly
we must all be real

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1193

Left in the dark. Watched the earth: as she turned to face the sun; as she turned the colors of her northern woods to the colors of her southern fruits: orange and lemon and passion fruit.

Late afternoon. Now the earth turns her back to the sun and looks toward where the moon and the velvet and the lesser lights will soon be, and she looks forward to dreamtime.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1192

How smart are we!
A mobile over a baby’s head
showing—tactilely—how the world works
everything is connected
everything is moving
always
when something is touched
everything is changed
everything is one
everything is brightly colored
everything is fun!

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1191

Before you write your Will
Write a poem
To each person in it
Your poem will open to you
Story and heart,
Family and hearth,
The generations

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© c 2011, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com